Budgeting to build an app can be a challenging exercise, but it doesn’t have to be if you keep the proper expense graph in mind. With 6 years of experience building apps, and after speaking with thousands of customers, I’ve learned that a majority of folks have the wrong expense graph in their mind when budgeting to build a mobile app.
Most people think that cost will scale up over the course of building and launching a mobile app, or that there is a large upfront cost with zero or close to zero cost after launch.
The right expense graph for any new mobile application project will resemble a bell curve. You'll have some initial costs up front, as you begin to design and wireframe your app.
Heavy feature development is when you'll see most of your costs. Your cost to build your app will spike as you add features, integrate with other services, add database support, and other necessary features to turn your idea into a functional mobile app.
Once your app is feature-complete, you'll see a decrease in continuing costs. You'll still have to pay for testing, push notifications, analytics, hosting, and maintenance.
If the app is successful and you add new features to support more daily active users, then there should be a higher cost with each version. Your app's ongoing maintenance cost will ensure you are testing the app and paying for hosting. These ongoing costs will scale with the amount of users actively engaging with your app each day.
The App Press team is happy to help you budget any mobile app project. Want to learn more about how to budget for your next mobile app project? Contact our sales team - we've got the experience to help you plan your project and budget accordingly, from your first sketch to your first 100,000 users.
If you'd like to get a quick estimate of how much your app will cost to build, give our app pricing calculator a shot. Just answer a few questions, and get an automatic estimate for how much you can expect to spend to bring your idea to life.
